Cristina is a senior research fellow in the Maternal Health Systems, Policy and Implementation Research Group at the Department of Women & Children’s Health in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King's. Her background is in nursing, midwifery and public health with nearly two decades of clinical, academic and research experience in both high and low income countries. She is a PRINCE2 practitioner and holds a Diploma in Tropical Nursing, a MPH and a PhD in Public Health.

Cristina has experience in clinical and applied health research in relation to tropical and infectious diseases, complex interventions in maternal, child and adolescent health, and mixed methods implementation research with a focus to address global health challenges and inequities. She is part of the consultancy roster for the WHO and one of the co-founders of the UK Chagas Hub, a network to tackle Chagas disease among the Latin American community in the UK. She also teaches in the School, supervises MSc and PhD students, peer reviews for high impact journals and participates in various funding committee/ advisory panels.

Her main interests include research capacity strengthening in global health, hybrid trials, implementation and policy, particularly within the area of sexual and reproductive health; she is open to enquiries from prospective students with similar research interests.